|
BY
Rashid Haidari
Monday, May 17, 2004
According to the news
agencies, the Iranian regime’s Guardian Council on the 6th
of May, 2004 passed a law banning the use of torture against
detainees. The approval of the law comes after clerics have repeatedly
denied the use of torture in their prisons in the past.
Passing this new law is
certainly a good step forward and a positive change in Iranian’s
judicial system. yet, in order to reach an ideal judicial system
acceptable to today’s progressive world, there is a long way to go and
further, serious steps are needed to be taken, despite the fact that
there are possibly no rooms for such grave changes within the
framework of the Islamic republic of Iran. To further clarify the
issue of torture in Iran, it is necessary to go into the issue a
little deeper:
Torture is undoubtedly a
terrible phenomena, often practised by tyrants and oppressors to
terrify people with a view to protecting their illegitimate powers. It
has different forms in different totalitarian countries in the world.
In Iran, a country where human rights are broadly abused and oppressed
peoples’ rights to freedom and self-determination are denied by
clerics, one could, for instance, mention execution, stoning and
flogging as common forms of torture.
“Among these forms of
torture, the death penalty is the most extreme form of torture: it is
a cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and a violation of the right
to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party.”1
Another common form of
torture in the Islamic Republic of Iran is stoning. Compared with
other forms of torture, stoning is the most contemptuous one. It is
considered by human rights defenders and open-minded intellectuals and
democracy advocates as a shocking punishment belonging to the Middle
Ages. Stoning is mostly used against women, who have allegedly had
sexual relations with men out of marriage.
Except for Iran, Stoning is employed by some other backwarded,
undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, etc. This
shameful manner of torture, like other forms, is not in harmony with
values and principles of modern, developed societies in the world. It
is a behaviour which is impossible to be tolerated or endured by
international progressive communities and that is why there is a
worldwide campaign against it.
Concerning stoning,
Amnesty International makes it clear that “the punishment of stoning
is designed to cause the victim grievous pain before leading to death.
Such methods of execution specifically designed to increase the
suffering of victims are of particular concern to Amnesty
International, as the most extreme and cruel form of torture, which is
expressly prohibited by the ICCPR.” 2
Flogging, another manner
of torture in Iran, is as awful as other forms. As far as I know, this
dreadful phenomena does not have any roots in Iranian peoples’ history
or traditions. Its emergence goes back to the time when the Islamic
republic of Iran was established following the victory of the 1979
revolution.
Taking into
consideration the above-mentioned horrible forms of torture employed
by Iranian regime, banning the use of torture against detainees was
definitely necessary but not sufficient. Iranian peoples, specially
families of detainees, can not fully relax before all forms of torture
have been removed for ever.
To
eliminate
all those inhuman forms
of torture, Iranian peoples should intensify their joint struggles,
supported by democratic countries and sponsors of human rights,
against Islamic republic of Iran in general and its violent judicial
system in particular. This is the most effective way to go because
passing the new law was surely the direct result of their constant
struggles led by their political parties and organizations from one
hand and the pressure from human rights organizations and general
opinion in the world from the other hand. Let this joint struggle go
on constantly till
all forms of torture and their designer, The Islamic Republic of Iran,
have been removed for ever.
|